India Upset With RIM Because Solution To Spy On Emails Doesn't Work Well

from the time-to-stop-using-your-blackberry dept

Fri, Oct 1st 2010 2:01am — Mike Masnick

A couple years ago, the Indian government started demanding that RIM give them a backdoor to read encrypted Blackberry email messages. At the time, RIM insisted that was technically impossible due to end-user encryption (something that's been called into question due to RIM's agreements with other countries, such as Saudi Arabia). A few months after that exchange, India announced that it didn't matter any more because it had cracked the encryption, and could spy on messages at will.

So it seemed a bit odd when India again demanded access to RIM Blackberry messages, leading to a standoff where RIM eventually "backed down" and offered to help India spy on users. However, the Indian government is now complaining that the solution doesn't let them spy enough:

The telecom department has rejected the interception solution offered by Canada's (RIM) for its secure corporate email service. What's more is that it has spurned RIM's technical solution for decoding all chat communication on the popular BlackBerry Messenger service...

In an internal note, dated September 28, reviewed by ET, the telecom department's security wing claims security agencies have been unable to intercept or monitor secure email communication made through the (BES) in readable format. "RIM maintains that it does not have the keys that can be offered to security agencies for converting secure corporate email into readable format," said a senior DoT official with direct knowledge of the matter. The DoT internal note claims law enforcement agencies have failed to intercept chats on the BlackBerry Messenger platform, which runs counters to the home ministry's recent position that it is satisfied with the interception solution offered by RIM.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like RIM is still sticking to the fact that, thanks to end-user encryption, it simply can't reveal the message contents -- but it sounds like it agreed to offer access to other information, which the Indian government feels is not enough. Of course, for all of India's rather public admission that it wants to spy on all sorts of communications, it doesn't seem to recognize that it's scaring companies away from doing business in India, as the threat of having communications spied upon is too big a risk.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: blackberry, emails, encryption, india, spying
Companies: rim

13 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2010 @ 4:21am

/facepalm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2010 @ 5:18am

Moronic
Even the most moronic bureaucrat should be aware that there are any number of ways of transferring secret messages between any two internet-connected points. Many encryption techniques have been invented. More could be created with almost no effort. Decryption by unauthorised persons, not in possession of the necessary keys, or knowledge of the algorithm, is for all practical purposes impossible. The Indian bureaucrats have apparently just discovered that for themselves. Denying business an internet connection is not practical. So the secret message genie is well and truly out of the bottle.

The bureaucrats should stop wasting their time trying to perform the impossible and get back to good old fashioned police work. There are any number of bad guys operating brazenly in public. If the bureaucrats really do want to reduce criminality, the problem is the lack of will, not the lack of information.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- 007, 1 Oct 2010 @ 5:56am
  
  Re: Moronic
  Agreed, & so does Miss Moneypenny.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Pete Braven (profile), 3 Oct 2010 @ 7:54am
  
  Re: Moronic
  GCHQ, FBI and NSA have all dabbled with this and frankly, I doubt they could collectively butter toast without an instruction manual!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike C. (profile), 1 Oct 2010 @ 6:40am

HIPAA?
I deal with insurance data at my job and some of that is medical related (i.e. worker's compensation). A few of the companies we deal with have outsourced some of their data entry to firms in India. If the Indian government is monitoring all data going in and out of the country, couldn't that possibly be a HIPAA violation for a US based firm?

/just curious
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Overcast (profile), 1 Oct 2010 @ 7:39am

couldn't that possibly be a HIPAA violation for a US based firm?

Governments usually don't let laws get in their way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2010 @ 7:56am

I am from America. I have the same advice for India as I do for China. Frak you and your entire system. Why should I support such abuses of human rights. India sucks. It's a dirty disgusting place rampant with disease and poverty, the same as China. China just made all the poor people move so we can't see them. Neither one of these countries give a damn about America except to steal from us. So who cares if the tech they ripped off doesn't work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- mhenriday (profile), 2 Oct 2010 @ 9:39am
  
  @ an anonymous coward from the USA
  You don't seem to have been doing your homework - or perhaps, since the news is all of two months old, you've simply forgotten that your government wants to allow the FBI to compel internet providers to turn over records of an individual's internet activity without a court order (goo.gl/Lijh ). Can it be that like many in your country, you are more concerned with the mote in your neighbour's eye than the beam in your own ? As for tech being ripped off, how much, for example, do you pay the Chinese everytime you wipe yourself after defecation ? Both paper and more specifically, toilet paper are Chinese inventions.... Henri
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Christopher (profile), 3 Oct 2010 @ 9:57pm
    
    Re: @ an anonymous coward from the USA
    No, they aren't. Paper and toilet paper are respectively, Egyptian and American inventions. The latter created by Americans for better cleanliness in the 1800's.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - mirradric, 4 Oct 2010 @ 4:39am
      
      Re: Re: @ an anonymous coward from the USA
      I believe that the paper invented by the Egyptians you are referring to is the papyrus. Papyrus is actually very different from paper and have very different characteristics.
      Papyrus is made using the strips of the papyrus plant making it less pliable while paper is made from cellulose pulp (rather than individual strips) making it more pliable.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- neurojava, 5 Jan 2011 @ 4:03pm
  
  Re:
  And let me guess, you are a gigantic, fat, corn fed, stupid ignoramous whose understanding of the world complexity ends in your front lawn:)
  
  R
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Derek Kerton (profile), 1 Oct 2010 @ 3:27pm

Note To Governments
At what point do bureaucrats think it became OK for democratic governments to brazenly invade our privacy, and have default access to all communication?

For those spooks reading, it never became OK. Stop it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2010 @ 9:42am

My e-mail is copyright myself, and protected with DRM. If they want to read it they should buy a license from me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]